Your Snoring Experiences

Please share your experience of how snoring or sleep apnea disrupted your life and the treatments that you tried in your quest for bed time bliss. Whether you are a long suffering spouse or someone with personal experience of this common sleep disorder, we'd like to hear from you. 

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debs….…My husband's snoring sounded like a motorbike. It started out as a mild problem as I could get him to turn on his side if I gently kicked him! However, as time went on his snoring seemed to get louder and louder. 

Eventually it got to the point that we could no longer sleep together. I remember trying to get our newborn off to sleep one night. Every time we were almost there my husband kept nodding off and began the snoring immediately. I got quite angry and he left the room. I felt really bad as he had been working shifts and was sleep deprived. He couldn’t keep his eyes open and when he drifted off he had me shouting at him. He felt obliged to leave the room, as he was the one snoring. This was a classic case of snoring straining people’s relationships. 

Our family doctor referred us to a head and neck surgeon for a palatectomy - a surgical procedure to the roof of the mouth and uvula. The surgery worked. The snoring stopped and we were able to enjoy some restful nights, at least for a while. Now, with every breath he growls even louder than when he used to snore! It drives me mad and makes me want to scream. Marital harmony is now achieved with the use of quality earplugs and a lot of tolerance. I love my husband dearly, but if I could change one thing it would be the wretched snoring..….

RG........Sounds like sleep apnea to me. Particularly as he sounds like that after the surgery. A friend of ours had to attend a sleep clinic for testing. His snoring was very bad and he was always getting tired at work. His doctor referred him for sleep evaluation when numerous blood tests for tiredness symptoms proved normal. Now he wears a CPAP mask at night.....

Kaz........My doctor told me it was imperative that I lose weight as this was causing my obstructive sleep apnea. My weight had been an ongoing problem for years and I think the doctor was resorting to scare tactics. Later that week, I received a CPAP machine from the sleep clinic. Someone came out to show me how to set it up and after a few nights of perseverance, I felt better. I was having more restful nights and felt more energetic during the day. I consider myself lucky that I did not have health complications due to my ignorance about this very serious condition.....

Brian........I was thinking about how the Army tolerates soldiers that snore. Most people comment on how they dealt with those that snore, or how it didn’t bother them when they were so sleep deprived. One sailor spoke of having to sleep with noisy jets taking off above him, so people snoring was the least of his worries. Others spoke of being in combat situations where you are too alert to even sleep, let alone snore.

While this certainly made for interesting reading, I was thinking more about the impact of snoring on covert operations that rely on stealth. During the American War of Independence, a cannonball was sewn to the inner side of the snoring soldiers' uniforms. This stopped them turning over onto their backs and disturbing fellow soldiers. More recently, the Chinese army have announced an all out ban on chronic snoring. Also among the new recruitment guidelines, introduced to "affirm the military's high standards", will be a ban on tattoos and drugs. Urine tests to detect traces of drugs will be introduced, acknowledging that the people's vanguard is no longer as immune as it was once thought to be to the hedonistic influences that afflict youth elsewhere. Weeding out the chronic snorers will surely be a laborious process, as many don’t even realise they snore.



T.S........There is a Snoring Museum 

The Schnarch Museum in Alfeld, a small town in Lower Saxony, Germany, is utterly devoted to snoring (schnarch is German for snoring) and the various methods used to combat snoring throughout history. Physician and researcher Dr Joseph Alexander Wirth collected a range of snoring remedies and kept them in his basement. The collector later decided to share them with the public by opening the Museum of Snoring. Now the museum boasts some 400 snoring remedies and devices.

Examples include an “ear suppository” which is placed into the ear to prevent the snorer turning onto his side. There is a display case showing prosthetic devices for the oral cavity, which are designed to pull the jaw forward by force. There are nasal pins designed to stretch the nostrils, thereby allowing the snorer more oxygen. There is also a 100 year old “anti-snoring mask” with leather straps that wrapped around the chin so that the mouth remained closed. One of the more barbaric therapies is a device that delivers electric shocks when you snore. On a lighter note, there is a whole collection of stories and caricatures devoted to snoring, as well as various dolls and fabric animals that snore when squeezed.

References


1. [No authors listed] Clinical practice guideline: diagnosis and management of childhood obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Section on Pediatric Pulmonology, Subcommittee on Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome. American Academy of Pediatrics. Pediatrics. 2002 Apr;109(4):704-12

2. Tovey E et al Snoring in children might be an allergic type disease Pediatric Pulmonology

3. Pearsall J (ed.) The Concise Oxford Dictionary (10^th edn), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, pg. 61

4.  Puhan M A, Suarez A, Lo Cascio C, Zahn A, Heitz M, Braendli O Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome: a randomised controlled trial. BMJ 2006 332: 266-270

5. [No authors listed] Sleep Medicine: How Much Sleep Do We Need?  University of Wisconsin - School of Medicine